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August 31, 2006

UK: 80% Think Muslim Council Fails In Tackling Extremism

News from the Daily Mail and This is London describes the results of a poll made by PR Week magazine, an international public relations news organisation. The original poll results require paid subscription to be viewed, however.

The most important part of the survey was its finding that 78% of those polled thought that the Muslim Council for Britain has not done nearly enough to combat anti-Western extremism.

Readers of anti-Islamist blogs already know that the MCB, far from countering extremism, positively supports it. The Muslim Council does not exist to make Muslims more amenable to Britain, but to make Britain more accommodating to Muslims, extremist Muslims included. Its last general secretary, Iqbal Sacranie, had tried in 1996 to invite Osama bin Laden to an Islamic "rally" in London and his sidekick, press spokesman Inayat Bunglawala, similarly praised Osama bin Laden as a "freedom fighter". Sacranie attended a memorial service for the wheelchair-bound Islamist, Sheikh Yassin, founder of terror organisation Hamas, which has killed countless Israeli civilians. Yet Sacranie calls the dead cleric a "freedom fighter" and mendaciously compared him to Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.

Bunglawala, who like Sacranie is a dyed-in-the wool anti-semite, famously wrote in January 1993 that the Egyptian Islamist Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman was "courageous". A month later, the blind cleric ordered a truck laden with explosives to be detonated beneath the World Trade Center, killing six people. Bunglawala could be regarded as stupid for making such comments, or evil. It is more likely that he is both.

The current feuhrer at the MCB is Bangladeshi-born Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, who is also chairman of the East London Mosque, which was built with money from Saudi Arabia. Proof of Bari's contempt for "moderation" came when he invited Delwar Hossain Sayeedi to the East London Mosque in July. Sayeedi belongs to the Jamaat-e-Islami party, whose youth wing murders and threatens professors who promote secularism. Sayeedi has also said that Britain and the US "deserve all that is coming to them" for overthrowing the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Dr Bari also supports the notion of arranged marriages, and the Muslim Council of Britain recently persuaded the British government to abandon its plans to outlaw forced marriage, even though every year, 250 young girls are subjected to this abuse of their basic human rights.

And far from encouraging measures to defuse extremism, such as Britain's Terrorism Act 2006, the MCB actively campaigned to sabotage it. Abdurahman Jafar, vice chairman of the legal affairs committee of the MCB had in November tried to emasculate the bill by trying to have its clause against "glorification of terrorism" removed.

And when it was revealed that one of the 400 groups for which the MCB acted as an "umbrella organisation" was extremist, the MCB merely stated that it did not make checks on the attitudes of those it claimed to represent. Birmingham-based Ahl-e-Hadith with 41 branches across Britain carried on its website the statement that its followers should "be different from Jews and Christians" whose "ways are based on sick or deviant views".

And one of the Muslim Council of Britain's main tools is blackmail. On August 12, barely two days after details emerged of a massive plot to bomb at least nine planes bound to the US, devised by "British" Muslims, the Muslim Council for Britain sought with others to blackmail the government. A letter, printed in most newspapers, called for Britain to alter its Foreign Policy to satisfy British Muslims (a piddling 3% of the national demographic), as this would end extremism.

Anyone who reads blogs such as ours already knows that the Muslim Council for Britain is populated by extremists and supporters of terror, whose manipulations are only matched by their dishonesty.

What is so refreshing is that after more than a year of holding very public press conferences, and being portrayed since 7/7 as the faces of "moderate" Islam, if ever such a thing existed, the poll from PR Week has shown that the British public is not fooled any more by the duplicity and ulterior motives of the MCB.

Among the over-55s, who have been around long enough to be able to recognise political and lying scoundrels, the figure for those who thought the MCB was not doing enough to counter anti-Western extremism rose to 90%.

And despite the MCB's ubiquitous presence on media outlets whenever there is a Muslim outrage, the respondents found that they were undecided if the MCB was "tolerant of Western practices", split 50-50 on the matter.

What is surprising is that 40% thought that the MCB was not doing enough to uphold the Muslim faith.

These people are probably still living under the influence of media dhimmitude, and do not recognise that Mohammed, the founder of Islam, delighted in murder, war and theft (as well as paedophilia), which somehow disqualifies Islam as a real "faith". They also fail to recognise that the MCB is a purely political organisation, an unelected body abusing British democracy by unduly influencing the policies of an elected government.

Founded in 1997, the MCB's stated aim is to "promote cooperation, concensus and unity on Muslim affairs in the UK."

What its mission statement fails to mention is that Muslims are not expected to cooperate, but the British public are the ones who are expected, like those interrogated by Nazis, to do the "cooperating".

A spokesman for the MCB expressed disappointment about the poll, and made noises such as: "I don't think many people actually know what the MCB does. I'm not sure, for example, how many realise we are working with police to produce half a million pocket guides to go out to young Muslims to promote a new anti-terror hotline number. And we have repeatedly said that Muslims have a duty to inform police if know anything about a terrorist plot - not just a legal duty, but also an Islamic obligation."

"At the same time, we are not a law enforcement body. It's undoubtedly true that in recent years some Muslims have become so radicalised that they are prepared to contemplate murdering fellow citizens. The question we need to answer is what has contributed to that phenomenon. After all, we never saw this happening in the 1970s, 80s and 90s when Muslims were here in large numbers. Is it imams, is it preachers on back streets, is it the Internet, is it Government policy? We called for a public inquiry in the wake of the July 7 bombings to examine these questions but the Government has not agreed to hold one."

The spokesman said the MCB received no regular funding from the government, but failed to mention that it has received government funding of at least £500,000 ($951,714) from the Home Office. Last February it was awarded £150,000 ($285,555) from the Home Office's "cohesion and faiths unit" for the financial year that ended in March 2006.

The MCB has been registered as a UK charity, under the name "The Muslim Council of Britain Charitable Foundation" (number 1084651) since 23 January 2001. It has not completed its financial returns to the Charity Commission since it became registered as a charity five yeas ago, and its last statement of expenditure was made more than three years ago.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 9:18 PM | Comments (1)

Miss World: The Trouble With Muslims And Beauty Queens

The annual Miss World event has always been a charade, with lisping crowned beauties telling announcers that they would wish to use their title to improve the world and put an end to global poverty, before rushing off to advertise some soap product.

There were interesting moments, such as the UK Grand Finale in 1970 when frumpy feminists threw bags of flour at compere Bob Hope and called him a "sexist prick" and other sobriquets, but it was only since the Millennium that the annual pageant became really interesting. For that we have to thank our peace-loving Muslim friends.

Perhaps it was always inevitable that Miss World and Muslims were going to clash. The Miss World pageant had been initiated in 1951 by entrepreneur Eric Morley, chairman of the company Mecca, which owned ballrooms and bingo establishments throughout Britain. Muslims had already tried (and failed) to legally stop him using the name of his company.

In November 2002, fanatical Muslims in Nigeria used the event as an excuse to do a rerun of the rioting of 2000 where the introduction of sharia law had led to the deaths of thousands in Kaduna State in an orgy of sectarian bloodletting. In 2002, the Miss World pageant was due to have started in Nigeria in November, but as this coincided with Ramadan, the event was officially moved to the following month.

When journalist Isioma Daniel published an article in the newspaper This Day on Saturday November 16, all hell broke loose. The article suggested that the sexually incontinent "prophet" of Islam would have loved such a contest. She wrote: "What would Muhammed think? In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them."

As a result, on November 20 in Kaduna town, the regional offices of This Day were smashed up, and on the following day Muslims decided to indulge in their favourite hobby, slaughtering Christians and committing mayhem.

Many Christians were hacked to death by machete in their own homes, leading to recriminations the following day. The bloodshed had been incited by the local mosques. The violence spread to Abuja, the federal capital, and was initiated by Muslims at the Abuja mosque (above left). Three apologies by the Lagos-based paper This Day were ignored, as was a threat from the Nigerian government to punish those who had engaged in "irresponsible journalism". After three days of bloodshed and atavistic violence more than 250 were dead in Kaduna alone. Several churches had been totally destroyed in the town (pictured below right). The majority of the dead were non-Muslims, murdered by followers of the "religion of peace".

90 potential contestants for the Miss World pageant were already in Nigeria for the event when the rioting took place, but it was announced as the violence escalated that the event would be transferred to London. The usual procedure is for the contest to be held in the country where the previous winner hailed from, and in 2001, Nigerian Agbani Darego had been crowned Miss World.

Before the "offending" article had been written, there was already controversy about the Nigerian staging of the event. Contestants from Costa Rica, Denmark, Switzerland, South Africa and Panama had refused to take part, as the newly-implemented Sharia courts in Nigeria had sentenced unmarried women to be stoned to death for getting pregnant.

This year, the contest will be held in Warsaw, Poland, and already the controversial noises from Muslims have begun. We reported last year that four Muslim hopefuls from Britain were taking part in the national event to select a candidate for the Grand Finale.

And as has become a tradition, an old Muslm fart decided to condemn the event. In this case, the old fart was Hashim Sulaiman, of the Liverpool Islamic Institute, who had his anger (and maybe something else) pointed at Iraqi born Sarah Mendly, a 23-year old biochemistry graduate. He said: "There is no way a Muslim girl should be playing any part in this competition, because it is unlawful. The ladies in that contest are always very scantily dressed and the only part of the body that should be on display are the face, the hands and the feet."

""I would like this girl to withdraw from the contest immediately. I do not know what she was thinking in entering in the first place and I do not know what her parents were thinking when they allowed her to do so."

Though tipped to win, Miss Mendly was beaten by the equally stunning Hammasa Kohistani (pictured), who arrived in the UK from her native Uzbekistan when she was 9. She is intelligent, with good academic grades and is able to speak six languages, including Farsi, Russian and French. But being a beauty does not prevent her from making stupid comments.

Today, the BBC reports that the outgoing Miss England has launched a scathing attack on Blair. She has blamed the Prime Minister and his government for creating a "negative image" of Muslims since last years' Muslim terrorist attacks on 7 July, which killed 52 people travelling on London Transport.

She says: "Tony Blair addressed Muslims in particular, telling them that they need to sort out the problem within. That was a huge stereotype of the Islamic community. Even the more moderate Muslims have been stereotyped negatively and feel they have to take actions to prove themselves."

But so they should. Silence is acquiescence when members of one's faith commit terrorist attacks. And Muslims whose leaders sanction terrorism abroad have only themselves to blame for the near universal distrust which is shown to them at home. Miss England is living proof that no matter how academically intelligent a person is, there is always room to be a social idiot.

A spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government said: "There can never be an excuse for extremism and we totally reject any claim that we are not committed to working in partnership to tackle it."

And in the southern hemisphere, one old Muslim fart (pictured) has already started to condemn Muslims partaking in beauty contestants in Australia. The Australian Daily Telegraph reported in its print edition of August 29 that the salafist preacher Sheikh Mohammed Omran has been sounding off against a 16 year old girl. Ayten Ahmed, a Melbourne girl of Turkish origin, is condemned for deciding to take part in the Miss Teen Australia pageant.

Roger Coombs speaks of how the Sheikh, described as a "hairy oil painting" and as a "ratbag cleric", has said that for Ms Ahmed to partake in such a ceremony it was "a slur on Islam".

Coombs writes: "...back to the core of the issue, which is that, in Omran's radically Muslim world view, Islam is somehow offended by the idea of this woman in a beauty contest. Why, precisely? Which embodiment of Islam is offended and how? Does Allah care? If so, how do we know. Where is it written?"

The Melbourne-based Sheikh, who notoriously called Osama bin Laden "a good man" and said this year that 9/11 was the work of the US government, is criticised by Australia's Muslim contestant in the Miss World Contest, according to the Sydney Daily Telegraph.

Responding to the mad Mullah's comment that "The teachings of the Prophet and the Holy Koran do not encourage a girl to go out and uncover her modesty in public," 20-year old university student Sabrina Houssami from Sydney (pictured) has stood her ground, saying: "I try to treat people well and I don't see why wearing a swimsuit in a contest which raises so much money for charity would be against the rules."

So far, she has raised $1.2 million for charity, and she says this is proof enough that she is upholding one of the "five pillars of Islam".

And last month, the fanatical and violent members of the Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defenders Front) in Indonesia tried to have their Miss Indonesia, Nadine Chandrawinata, prosecuted for indecency, after she wore a bikini.

The Grand Finale of the 56th contest is being held on September 30.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 6:56 PM | Comments (1)

Turkey: Classic Western Books Get Muslim Makeover

A story from today's Telegraph reports that classical western books, such as Pinnochio by Carlo Collodi, Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter and many others, have been Islamified by Muslim publishers in Turkey.

Even the works of Victor Hugo, La Fontaine, Oscar Wilde, Chekhov and Alexander Dumas have not escaped the forced conversion of their characters. Even the little Swiss girl Heidi, in Johanna Spyri's eponymous children's classic, is told by Ms. Sesasman that praying to Allah will make her relax.

Polyanna is not only aware of the Koran, but now says she believes it has predicted the end of the world, Tom Sawyer learns his Islamic prayers and even gets a reward for learning his Arabic words. In The Three Musketeers, an old woman says to D'Artagnan of his friend Aramis: "He is surrounded by men of religion. He converted to Islam after his illness".

These books are among mutilated versions of 100 classic stories now officially placed on the school curriculum in Turkey as part of its "Essential Reading List".

The Turkish Daily News states that the books have now created a furor that has even reached parliament.

The bastardized versions of these classic books bear the logo of Turkey's Ministry of Education, but are apparently produced by Islamist publishers exploiting the fact that the ministry has recommended the original books as reading material.

The scandal was first exposed by the daily newspaper Radical, and the Education Minister Hüsseyin Çelik has condemned the Islamic publishers for their interferences.

As well as including references to Islam in stories where Islam was never thitherto mentioned, some publishing houses have gone a step further, and have decided to include obscenities to spice up the "approved" texts.

One book of riddles, which was on the Essential Reading List, appears in one version carrying the Ministry of Education logo, and is certainly not something the Ministry approves of - has puzzles using "obscene terminology", and vulgar language describing male reproductive organs.

Çelik said recently in the eastern city of Van that he will sue publishers of books containing obscenities if they carry the Ministry of Education logo.

The Islamicized versions of western classics are mostly produced by the lkbiz Publishing House, and questions were raised in the Turkish parliament on Friday. Engin Altay, deputy of the secularist opposition party (Republican People's Party or CHP) tabled a question to Education Minister Hüsseyin Çelik, asking if the books will be removed from shelves. As well as Western classics, Altay noted that the 100 books chosen for the list had a strong emphasis towards Islam. He said that the Ministry had connived in the scandal, by recommending books and then not checking the published editions.

Emin Ekinci from the teachers' union Egitim-Sen, who is principal of the Büyük Halkali primary school has noted that the Education Ministry's Training and Education Agency had not examined the "recommended" books, and said that parents should look for this agency's logo on the published books rather than the ministry's logo.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the Islamist Justice & Development Party (AKP), who currently has his aim set at the Turkish presidency, has now ordered Çelik to take legal action against the publishing houses who have "tampered" with the recommended texts.

There may be further reason for Erdogan to be annoyed - according to the Telegraph, some adulterated books on the reading list include rude rhymes which mock the president and the prime minister.

But before the publishing houses are punished and the books are withdrawn from sale, Turkish children can still enjoy the obscenities and also the Islamist messages, such as the ones contained in that renowned Muslim classic Pinocchio, where the puppet says to his "father" Geppetto: "Give me some bread, for Allah's sake."

Someone's nose should grow by at least few inches.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 2:44 PM | Comments (0)

India: Islamic Seminary Prohibits Life Insurance

An influential Sunni Muslim institution in India has declared life insurance "un-islamic" as it violates Islamic Law, The Houston Chronicle and MSNBC report.

Ulemas (Islamic Clerics) at the Darul Uloom seminary in Deoband reasoned that since insurance is "sort of gambling" and it also involves the payment of interest money, it surely is against the wishes of Allah. Riba, or "usury", is condemned by all major Islamic sects, although disagreements exist about what exactly constitutes Riba.

The ruling is the latest in a series of rulings which seem to be designed to further alienate Indian Muslims from secular India.

Muhammad ibn Abdullah, the self-proclaimed last and perfect prophet for humanity, prohibited Riba for his followers although he took loans to finance his warfare from Jews whom he later vilified, and eventually slaughtered. The prohibition of so-called usury remains a difficulty for the proper development of Islamic countries, as well as a constant difficulty for Muslims living in countries not ruled by Islam.

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 12:03 PM | Comments (0)

August 30, 2006

Indonesia: Muslim Threats Cause Tourists To Be Warned

News from the New Zealand Herald relates that earlier today, the director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Paul O'Sullivan warned that Muslim groups in Indonesia were planning new atrocities against Western visitors.

O'Sullivan was addressing a conference on national security and business in Sydney, Australia, and said that more attacks against Australians were likely over the next few months.

He said: ""Further attacks against Australians and Australian interests in Indonesia are likely, as key Jemaah Islamiyah indentities, including Noordin Mohammed Top, remain at large."

Top was regarded as a financier and recruiter for Jemaah Islamiyah, who is said to have played a key part in the 2002 bombings on Bali, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australian tourists. His current whereabouts are unknown.

There has been a "stream of reporting" on the potential of such attacks, leading to Australia's Foreign Affairs Department to warn nationals against travel to Indonesia. The likelihood of such attacks is more probable between now and December. The Department warns citizens to exercise "extreme caution".

In New Zealand, the message to potential travellers to Indonesia was the same - stay away. Brad Tattersfield, New Zealand;s Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman said of the warnings against travel to Indonesia: "We've had that level of advice pretty much since the first Bali bombing. The reason we have maintained that is because we continue to receive advice from a range of sources that this level of advice is warranted."

An Islamist website has suggested that attacks may take place on Kuningan district in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, as well as other targets in the city. These include sporting venues, shopping malls, hotels, and the Jakarta zoo.

There are also risks associated with visiting Western fast food venues, bars, cinemas, churches, and government buildings.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 11:31 PM | Comments (0)

Australia: Jihad Jack's Wife Denies Muslim Terror Group Links

We reported yesterday that "Jihad Jack" or Joseph Thomas (pictured right), was subjected to a control order, the first to be imposed under Australia's new anti-terrorism laws. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) had argued that Thomas was likely to be "attractive to aspirant extremists who will seek out his skills and experiences to guide them in achieving their potentially extremist objectives."

The AFP summary also claimed: "Mr Thomas's links with extremists such as Abu Bakar Bashir, some of which are through his wife, may expose and exploit Mr Thomas's vulnerabilities."

Though he had been acquitted on August 18 of receiving money from Al Qaeda because he had been "under duress" when he had been questioned in Pakistan in March, 2003, Thomas had nonetheless freely admitted on a Four Corners show for ABC that he had been to Afghanistan to join Al Qaeda, that he had met Osama bin Laden, and had been trained at the Al Qaeda-run Al Farooq terror training camp, where he had learned how to assemble explosive devices.

There were also fears that his Indonesian wife Maryati had connections with Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual head of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah.

Now, according to the Australian and the Melbourne Age, Jihad Jack's wife has been protesting that she has had no family connections with Jemaah Islamiyah, the Indonesian terror group which caused, amongst other atrocities, the October 2002 bombings on Bali, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australian tourists.

Maryati's parents, Zuhra and Mohammad Idris, have now stated that the stories of a family link to Abu Bakar Bashir, which are contradictory and have come from Thomas and his lawyer Rob Stary, have no basis in fact. One of the claims had been that Mrs Idris (pictured below left) had gone to school with a woman who had gone on to marry the Islamist preacher, who was jailed for giving his consent to the 2002 Bali bombings. Mrs Idris says that the person she went to school with who eventually married Bashir as his second wife was not a friend, but a "friend of a friend".

In 2004, during a bail hearing, Rob Stary had made the claim that Maryati Thomas was a friend of Bashir's wife. Jihad Jack, in his interview on "our Corners" had said: "My wife had gone to school with his wife. They went to school together, as far as I know."

Les Thomas, Jack's brother, said: "This whole notion of the marriage itself being a kind of dark terror plot - it's just unbelievable."

Jihad Jack's father-in-law said of him: "I went regularly with him to work at 4am at the fruit distribution business where he had a job, to help him out. As a former policeman, I know how to spot if something wrong is going on."

Thomas had Maryati had married in South Africa in 1998, but they had not seen each other until a bare two hours before the Muslim wedding took place. Until then, all their correspondence had been via email. Jihad Jack had employed a marriage broker to forge the tryst.

Maryati had visited Jihad Jack in Pakistan in late 2001, when he was still an Al Qaeda trainee, and subsequent to this, she herself had been monitored for a few months by Australian intelligence.

Maryati's sister "She doesn't like politics, doesn't like the headache of it. She always says, 'I study hard, but what I study is Islam'."

She had been a tomboy during her teenage years, and had worn cropped hair then, stated her parents. They showed a photograph to prove it. Maryati only started to wear the hijab or Muslim headscarf when she went to Monash University in Melbourne to study Information Technology.

The director of the International Crisis Group, Dr Sidney Jones, is an expert on Jemaah Islamiyah. She has affirmed that there is no evidence to confirm that Maryati Thomas is a senior figure in Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). She also states that nether Thomas' nor his wifes' name appeared during her extensive researches.

According to the Age, Jihad Jack also denies claims that he travelled overseas with another Muslim convert, called Jack Roche. This man was convicted in 2004 of trying to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Canberra. Like Thomas, Roche had been a Melbourne taxi driver.

Jihad Jack Thomas said he had met Abu Bakar Bashir and Jack Roche only once, in a hotel in Indonesia. He said: "Bashir came to the hotel.... with Jack Roche. As far as I knew he was coming to visit the people in the hotel who had been to the Haj. In half-an-hour I probably spoke half-a-dozen words to him."

In another story from the Australian, magistrate Gordon Mowbray has accused the government of turning Jihad Jack's control order proceedings into a "farce". Speaking at the Federal Magistrate's Court in Canberra, the capital, Mowbray said that the mentioning of Osama bin Laden's name in the AFP summary should not have been made.

The summary stated that Joseph Thomas should not contact Osama bin Laden.

Mowbray said: "In my view it makes the order look somewhat silly in putting the name on the list," he said. "... it makes it look almost a bit farcical, and this is a very serious proceeding."

And in separate news, the Islamist cleric Abu Bakar Bashir has added some fuel to the flames of the controversy over Bali 2002, by claiming that the terrorist atrocity was carried out by the United States government.

According to the Indonesian news agency Antara News, Bashir said to Australia's ABC TV that the CIA had detonated a "micro-nuclear" bomb in Bali in a move to discredit Islam.

Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, said: "It's a free country, and he can say what he likes, and of course some of the comments that he made yesterday were fairly preposterous. I don't think anyone would much believe anything he was saying."

If Bashir really believes this nonsense, maybe the Cipinang prison in East Jakarta, which he left on June 13 was the wrong sort of establishment for him to be imprisoned within

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)

Indonesia: Trial Of Editor For Publishing Muslim Cartoons

According to Italian News Agency AKI and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the trial was due to have started today of a web editor, Teguh Santosa, for publishing some of the Mohammed cartoons which were originally commissioned by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

Teguh was due to appear in South Jakarta District Court today, charged with "defamation against a religion". I have checked on Antara News and the Jakarta Post's English language pages, and can find no mention of the case.

The editor of Rakyat Merdeka Online was arrested on July 19, even though he had made a public apology for showing the pictures, which are considered offensive to Muslims. He had also removed the images from the news website. He is being charged with defamation of a religion under the Indonesian Criminal Code (KUHP). If found guilty, he could face five years' imprisonment.

Christopher Warren, the president of IFG stated: "This trial against Teguh is an affront to free speech. To face five years imprisonment, is not only excessive, it is also an attack on the very foundations of freedom of expression."

"This is another terrible violation of press freedom, which in a long line of defamation lawsuits against journalists and media organisations, including Tempo, Kompas, and Trust, seems to highlight a troublesome pattern in Indonesia."

"It is time for the Indonesian Government to recognise that jailing journalists for defamation is an ineffective and inappropriate penalty. Defamation should be dealt with through the civil Law of the Press 40/1999 in Indonesia."

IFJ represents 500,000 journalists in more than 115 countries. When we have more news on this trial, we will report it.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 9:56 PM | Comments (0)

Netherlands: Politician Facing Islamic Threats Gets No Campaign Security Help

Before Ayaan Hirsi Ali left Holland to work in America, she shared one thing in common with another member of the Dutch parliament, Geert Wilders. Both were recipients of open death threats from Muslims. When the film-maker Theo van Gogh was killed in a street by Islamist Mohamed Bouyeri on November 2, 2004, a note was pinned to his chest with a knife. This note threatened Hirsi Ali and Wilders with death.

At the end of March this year, there had been a total of 121 recorded death threats made against Wilders and Ali.

Wilders, like Hirsi Ali, had been forced to go into hiding since van Gogh's murder, and only emerges into the public eye when accompanied by bodyguards. Like Hirsi Ali, Wilders had been a member of parliament, representing the Liberal Party, or VVD. However, he resigned from the party in late 2004 because of his opposition to Turkey gaining accession to the European Union.

With elections soon coming up, Wilders has founded his own party, the Party for Freedom (pvdV). But he has had to cancel a recent campaign meeting which was planned in the town of Holten yesterday, because his bodyguards said that it was unsafe. SImilarly, he has been forced to abandon a meeting in Friesland, for the same reasons.

Expatica reports that WIlder's bodyguards insist that all people attending any meetings must firstly pass through an electronic gate, which detects metal objects. To hire just one of these for one night costs 1,000 Euros ($1,283), and Wilders does not have the funds to afford these.

He told 'De Volkskrant' newspaper: "We don't have that. We are a small party. This means the end of my campaign."

He has requested assistance from the Justice Ministry, but they have refused to help. A spokesman has said that parties should be responsible for their own security.

Parliament has already supported the notion of security for Mr Wilders' campaign. Frans Weisglas, the parliament chairman, has said: "We believe the government must ensure that everyone can conduct a campaign in all freedom. Money should not be an obstacle."

This month, the broadcaster TROS cancelled an appearance by Geert Wilders because of the high costs of security. Now Mr Wilders is hoping that the Justice Minister himself, Piet Hein Donner, will intervene to allow security funding.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 9:19 PM | Comments (0)

UK: Arguments Over Muslim "Faith-Schools"

Last week, Britain's Communities Secretary, Ruth Kelly, made a speech at the inauguration of the Commission on Integration and Cohesion on Wednesday, August 23, in which she gave fulsome praise to the multi-ethnic society of Britain. There was little in this speech to outrage PC proponents. She said: "...I believe that we should celebrate and clearly articulate the benefits that migration and diversity have brought - but while celebrating that diversity we should also recognise that the landscape is changing, changing rapidly. And we should not shy away from asking - and trying to respond to - some of the more difficult questions that arise.

I believe it is time now to engage in a new and honest debate about integration and cohesion in the UK. If we are to have an effective, progressive response to these issues, then we must be honest about the challenges we face and be prepared to meet these head on with renewed energy and impetus."

Nothing too controversial there, then. However, despite her praise in this speech for the "work in Bradford aimed at developing a citizenship curriculum for Madrassas", at the weekend, she made a fierce attack on some Muslim faith schools while talking to the BBC on its News 24 strand. Here, she argued that Muslim "faith-schools" which propagated "isolationism and extremism should be closed.

She still peppered her comments with PC-friendly comments, such as: "When I see a Muslim woman wearing a headscarf or a hijab, I don't feel threatened, I celebrate it."

Her comments about Islamic schools which promoted segregation have provoked criticisms, which will be described later. But to understand the irony and hypocrisy of her contradictory comments, one must first remember that Ruth Kelly, herself a devout Catholic, was previously the Education Minister. While holding this post, she had helped to promote these same faith schools, which she now claims include some which foster segregation.

Tony Blair has always encouraged such faith-schools, even though these have been deeply unpopular with the general public. In November 2001, a poll by You Gov found that 80% of the British public were against increases in religious schools. The poll involved 5,979 individuals, and had been taken in the first part of the month. This was a month after the horrors of 9/11.

The Education secretary at that time was Estelle Morris, herself a former teacher, and Tony Blair was said to be 'personally committed' to encouraging more religious groups to set up their own schools, with a lessening of the capital required to start such ventures. Estelle Morris' support for such groups was widely criticised by varying groups, including Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society. Morris was suggesting faith-schools should be more inclusive and allow students from other faiths to enroll.

The then-education spokesman for the Tory party, Damien Green, had criticised Morris for suggesting that such schools should include other faith-oriented pupils, saying: "Parents will value faith schools as they are at the moment. The government needs to decide whether they actually support faith-based schools."

Last year, when Ruth Kelly was the Education Minister, another poll was taken by ICM for the Guardian, and it showed that the public were still overwhelmingly against faith schools. The poll found that 64% of those questioned thought "the government should not be funding faith schools of any kind".

And since then the arguments have continued. On April 11 this year, teachers from the Association of Teachers and Lecturers voted in favour of a call to the government to ban the funding of faith schools from the public purse. But a week later, on April 18 the National Union of Teachers voted against any ban to end faith-based state education, despite a motion which said that these schools led to ethnic conflict, extremism and "even terrorism".

So Ruth Kelly's comments come on top of an already contentious debate. The majority of the public reject the idea of their tax money being used to fund schools which suggest Mohammed the "prophet" was the living ambassador of God, and teachers themselves are polarised over the issue of such schools.

The full text of Ruth Kelly's speech to the Commission on Integration and Cohesion can be found here. It is hardly world-shattering in its mundane acceptance of the diversity of UK culture and society, aimed at an audience which already promotes such an interpretation of society.

But her comments to the BBC are more sharp, even though they whitewash aspects of the current situation. "Most Muslims would call those terrorists who would undermine the fabric of this society as not true Muslims but revolutionaries who are cowering under the cloak of Islam," she said. She advised that countering such extremism would require having communications with "these law-abiding Muslims people in this country who try to combat that."

We reported on August 14 how her previous attempts to talk to Muslim "representatives" about the Islamist extremism led to one individual, Dr Syed Aziz Pasha OBE, having the audacity to suggest that if Muslims in Britain had sharia law, then that would combat extremism.

She said to the BBC that the government would never countenance sharia law in Britain: "We are not going down that route. We don't think that's compatible with Britain being a tolerant, diverse society that welcomes people of different faiths."

But she was firm about Islamic faith schools that promoted isolationism, saying that the government had to "stamp out" such establishments. She said: "They should be shut down. Different institutions are open to abuse and where we find abuse we have got to stamp it out and prevent that happening."

On Muslims who celebrated terror at home and abroad, she said: ""The bottom line is, if they are glorifying terrorism, if they are criminals, if they are breaking the law in this country then they should be arrested and dealt with appropriately. We've got to say that clearly and not be afraid to say it, and work with the community and the Muslim community as well."

Trevor Phillips, the Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, caused controversy last year, when he suggested that immigrants from the Indian sub-continent were choosing to live in segregated ghettoes in Britain's cities. However, the Times reports that yesterday, Phillps argued in favour of Muslim faith-based schools. He was addressing the Royal Geographic Society, and made a veiled hint at Ruth Kelly's comments. He spoke of the commonly-held view that faith-schools, and Muslim faith-schools especially, were incompatible with integration.

Phillips said: "What the proponents of this view really want to say is one of two things. One, a perfectly valid view, is that religion should be banned from the public sphere and practised only in private if at all. The other, not at all valid in my view, is that Muslims can't be trusted to run schools, like Christians have done for centuries."

But perhaps the most angry critic of Ruth Kelly's comments came from with in her own constituency. Kelly is MP for Bolton West, and a Muslim woman from Bolton, Komal Adris, has condemned her comments about Islamic schools which promote "isolationism and extremism". Ms Adris is from the northern branch of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee

The Bolton Evening News reports that Ms Adris has said that Kelly had made faith-schools a "scapegoat".

She said: "We've had a faith school in Bolton for a long time, and I don't think we've had a problem. I think faith schools are just becoming a new scapegoat, because outside the school there's a whole community which pupils are engaging in. The government risks creating isolation themselves by singling out Muslim faith schools."

A councillor for Bolton, Rosa Kay, said: "I think faith schools have come a long way. Many make places available for pupils of other faiths, so there is a level of integration. I think understanding begins in schools, and I certainly wouldn't want to eliminate any faith schools."

"I just think it is important to encourage children to understand each other's religions. In Bolton we have the Interfaith Council, which works with schools to promote that understanding."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 5:35 PM | Comments (1)

Sudan: Al-Bashir's Regime to Consider Paul Salopek's "Spying" Case

A Chicago Tribune reporter charged with espionage will have his case reviewed "out of humanitarian concern" by the Sudanese government, the Sudan Tribune reports.

Paul Salopek, a Pulitzer winner, was arrested earlier this month and charged with "espionage, passing information illegally, and writing false news." His arrest is part of a campaign by the Islamic regime of Omar al-Bashir to stop damaging news reports coming out of the Darfur region. The U.S. State Department has been trying to Mr. Salopek's release.

Charging unfriendly reporters with trumped-up crimes is a time-tested and quite effective technique of stopping unfriendly news reports. After the independent reporters have been intimidated away, stooges may be allowed to report what the authorities want to be reported. Robert Fisk may be awarded an exclusive report at this point. Sometimes the deception is so effective the stooge reporter "earns" a Pulitzer Prize.

The Darfur Jihad, which follows the far more deadly but largely ignored Jihad against the Christian and Animist populations of Sudan's South, has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, although accurate estimates may never be known. (Darfur Genocide estimates 400,000 people have died so far.)

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)

August 29, 2006

Bangladesh: Government Condones Islamists' Death Threats

We reported on August 12 that a bomb had been thrown at Rajshahi University by student activists of the Islami Chhatra Shabir (ICS). The group is the student wing of the second largest party in the government's 4-party coalition, Jamaat-e-Islami.

We discussed Jamaat-e-Islami, its history of siding with Pakistan against the Bengali populace during the war of independence which led to Bangladesh seceding from Pakistan in 1971. The Jamaat-e-Islami leader, Motiur Rahman Nizami, ordered the killing of countless Hindus at this time while he was head of ICS, its student wing.

The Jamaat-e-Islami, like its counterpart in Pakistan, seeks to establish sharia rule over Bangladesh, and therefore had a lot in common with the Islamist terrorist group Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). All seven leaders of the JMB's ruling council had links with the Islami Chhatra Shabir and/or Jamaat-e-Islami. On May 29, five members of JMB's ruling council were sentenced for death for killing two judges in a bomb attack in November last year.

We discussed the links between the JMB and the government on August 17, anniversary of the nationwide serial bombings carried out by JMB and its partner Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) whose leader Bangla Bhai was also a member of JMB's ruling council.

The government seems oblivious to the excesses of Jamaat-e-Islami and its vicious student wing, and makes no effort to condemn the violence done in its name.

And again, the fanatics of Islami Chhatra Shabir are making headlines again, this time for threatening the life of a nationally renowned author and man of letters, Hasan Azizul Haq. This man is also a professor at Rajshahi University. What makes the threat so serious is that Islami Chhatra Shabir members already murdered a professor at the same university. Professor S. Taher Ahmed of the Geology & Mining Department had been murdered on February 3. One of the three arrested in the killing claimed that another lecturer at the University, Mahbubul Alam Salehi, had been named as one of those who gave the order for Professor Ahmed to be killed.

Salehi had fled after the murder, but was later arrested. He had been released from bail at the start of this month, and had gone back to the university, guarded by police, to hold a rally. Salehi is head of the local Islami Chhatra Shabir faction at Rajshahi. It was in response to protests against his visit that a homemade bomb was thrown by ICS students, a device which injured two fine arts students.

We also mentioned how on December 24, 2004, another professor from the same Rajshahi University, 65-year old Dr Mohammad Younus (Yunus) of the Department of Economics was brutally murdered by three members of Islami Chhatra Shabir. After being gagged with a towel, Professor Yunus was stabbed in the chest, stomach, head and torso by his assailants. Though carried out by ICS activists, the killing had been ordered by Abdur Rahman, the head of JMB, who is now awaiting a death sentence.

And on Friday November 16, 2003, a Hindu professor at Chittagong in the southeast of Bangladesh was attacked by six members of Islami Chhatra Shabir at his home. Professor Muhuri, principal of the Nazirhat College, was shot through the head, causing his skull to explode (pictured -graphically). The killer who shot him was allowed to escape punishment because of his connections to the government.

Professor Hasan Azizul Haq is only the latest professor to be threatened by Islami Chhatra Shabir, and so far, the Jamaat-e-Islami has failed to say anything about the matter, no arrests have been made, and it is doubtful if any arrests will be made until Haq becomes the victim of a killing.

And what was the lecturer and award-winning author's crime? He had made a speech promoting secularism in education. He made the speech at a seminar on August 21, and on August 24, a rally was held by ICS at the campus of Rajshahi University, in which speakers claimed that the author should either leave the country like Taslima Nasrin, or to die like Professor Humayun Azad.

Professor Azad, the author of 50 books and a supporter of women's rights was brutally attacked by three men armed with butcher's knives outside the Bangla Academy in Dhaka, on February 27, 2004. The attempted murder was ordered by Abdur Rahman, head of JMB, on account of Professor Azad's "blasphemy". The attack did not kill the author and academic, but on August 14 that year, he died in an apartment in Munich.

The students who were calling for the death of Professor Hasan Azizul Haq were fired up by two newspaper reports which had been published in pro-Jamaat dailies, Natun Probhat and Naya Diganta, describing and condemning his calls for secularism to be respected. At the rally, activists disseminated copies of the articles.

Professor Haq claimed that the articles were total concoctions, and bore no resemblance to the actual comments he had made at the August 21 seminar.

The rally had been convened by Zulfikar Nayeem, and those who spoke there included Mahbubur Rahman, Mokhlesur Rahman, Abul Alim and Nomani. They called Professor Haq "Nastik and enemy of Islam", and said he was not welcome on the canvas, and burned an effigy of the renowned author and educationalist.

His most ennerving comment in his speech had been a criticism of the way the government recognised Qawami madrassa degrees, calling such a move "a communal step that demeans the constitution....The state and religion are separate things. The fusion of religion with the mainstream national education and state system can never be accepted. It will be very dangerous for countrymen irrespective of religion."

Shabir said at first that he was not intimidated, and said his speech had concerned education, the state, and secularism, not religion. However, on Sunday August 27 he filed a report with the police at Rajshahi, requesting that he and his family should receive protection.

But Professor Haq was not the only academic and thinker to be threatened by the Islami Chhatra Shabir - also attacked and threatened was Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology in Sylhet, northeast Bangladesh. Zafar Iqbal is also an award-winning science fiction writer, who also holds to the secular model of education in Bangladesh.

Zafar Iqbal studied in Dhaka University and completed his Ph.D. from University of Washington. Later he worked as a scientist at California Institute of Technology and Bell Communication Research. His research area revolves around physics, computer, electronics and fibre optic communication. He designed one of the first Bangla word processors in 1984.

His books are aimed mainly at the young, children and adolescents, and aim to inspire in them an interest in science. His books are popular, and he was won awards for these. He spent 18 years living in the United States before taking up his professorship at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology.

The threats to these two noted educationalists have been roundly condemned, and the Awami League, the main opposition party has stated through its general secretary, Abdul Jalil, that the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Islami Chhatra Shabir have been working to make the country a haven for Islamist militants. Jalil said that the Jammat/Shibir wanted to kill the non-communal, democratic intellectuals, politicians and litterateurs. Jalil demanded the immediate arrest and exemplary punishments of culprits, but in Bangladesh, a nation governed by corruption, and preparing for a general election at the start of next year, such hopes are meaningless. Seventeen prominent individuals signed a statement condemning the threats, and claiming that the government was giving shelter to militants.

The nature of the threats are barbaric. Syed Badrul Ahsan is the executive editor of the Dhaka Courier, and describes how the Islami Chhatra Shabir militants have threatened to slice Professor Haq of Rajshahi University into small pieces, and to cut out Zafar Iqbal's tongue.

Mr Ahsan writes a history of the Jamaat-e-islami and their youth wing ICS from the time when Bangladesh struggled to gain its independence from Pakistan, a struggle which cost 3 million lives. A powerful indictment of the malevolent forces at work within Islamist movements, the article is worth reading. This is just an extract:

Note with how much clarity the fundamentalists have served notice on Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, the academic and writer we all know and respect so avidly. He is a brave man every inch of the way. But even bravery sometimes finds itself in a straitjacket.

Zafar Iqbal has been warned, in no uncertain terms and in manner reminiscent of all those wonderfully scripted murder thrillers produced in Hollywood, that unless he stops spouting secular notions of life, he will have his tongue cut out. What will then happen to that severed tongue has not been spelt out.

So much for democracy, for the right of a person to disagree with another. But whoever said people who have been playing communal politics and have found their niche in organizations like the Jamaat and the Muslim League believe in democratic pluralism?

Way back in 1953, the Jamaat-e-Islami under Abul A'la Maudoodi created mayhem in Lahore, so much so that blood flowed along the streets of the city. And it would not stop until General Azam Khan came along. In those days of Jamaat initiation into the politics of violence, the targets were men of unimpeachable integrity like Sir Zafrullah Khan. No, no one wanted to have his tongue cut out or have his body turned into mincemeat. But he had to be pushed out of Islam because he swore by the Ahmadiyya version of faith.

In the years since then, Maudoodi's followers have come a long way. Some of the best moments of their lives came in 1971 when Golam Azam swiftly made it a point, per courtesy of the Pakistani genocide, to offer assistance to Tikka Khan in the matter of doing away with the miscreants out to destroy Islam and Pakistan in these parts. The miscreants, of course, were seventy-five million Bengalis whose very simple wish was to assert themselves in the politics of their own land.

While the country prepares itself for the general elections, the violence and the threats are going to increase. Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh's main council may all be behind bars, with the majority awaiting hanging, but their footsoldiers remain. And their allies in government, always ready to seize an opportunity, are allowing the activists of Jamaat-e-Islami to run free, intimidating the defenders of freedom of speech, and trampling on the spirit of independence and secularism that first gave birth to Bangladesh.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)

Indonesia: Death Row Christians Charged In Muslim Conflict Appeal

We reported on August 13 that the fate of three Christians, whose trial breached even Indonesia's haphazard interpretations of justice, were granted a temporary last minute reprieve, delaying their execution. The three men, Fabianus Tibo, 60, Marinus Riwu, 48, Dominggus da Silva, 42 (pictured below), were due to have been shot by firing squad at an undisclosed location on Palu in Central Sulawesi on August 12. Because of national Independence Day celebrations, the executions were delayed.

The three men were tried and sentenced to death in April 2001, accused of inciting religious attacks and committing premeditated murder of Muslims at Poso in May 2000, though there is little to no evidence to substantiate this. The riots took place on May 23, 2000, and 191 people were killed. At their trial, militant Muslims were at the courthouse, chanting for their death, which may have influenced the verdict. In addition, vital evidence was ignored by the court.

Left to right - Fabianus Tibo, 60, Marinus Riwu, 48, Dominggus da Silva, 42

Before the executions were delayed, Pope Benedict XVI and representatives of the European Union had pleaded for clemency. Last year, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had rejected appeals to save the men's lives, despite appeals from Christian groups, US senators and international groups such as the Jubilee Foundation and Amnesty International.

On the Friday, the day before the executions were scheduled, the Jakarta Post reported that in the province of East Nusa Tenggara, where the men came from, thousands of people protested.

On Sunday August 13, leaders of the Indonesian Bishops Conference (KWI) wrote to the president saying that the country had ratified an international treaty on civil and political rights, which required the acknowledgement and respect of citizens' right to live, and argued for the death penalty to be abolished.

"We appeal to the government ... to abolish capital punishment for good.," the letter stated.

The lawyers for the three men also submitted names and details of 16 men who are thought to have been the real instigators of the violence which took place.

Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said: "The execution has not been canceled, just delayed. We did receive letters from various quarters, including the one from the Vatican, although I didn't see it personally."

Father Maxi Un Bria, Chairman of the Commission for Justice and Peace, said: "There is no dignity in execution, because humans assume the divine authority of taking a man's life, in the name of the law."

Even Mahendradatta, lawyer for three Islamists who are due to be sentenced to death for their role in the 2002 Bali bombings, claimed the decision to execute the three Christians was suspicious, as it came so close to the proposed executions of the three Muslims.

Islamists claimed that if the three Christians were not executed, then Muslims in Poso and Tojo Una-Una would be holding protests.

On Monday August 14 the government insisted that the executions of the three Catholics would take place. Chief security minister Widodo Adi Sucipto said: "We are currently in the phase of executing the court ruling. The execution will still be carried out."

On the Saturday, Amnesty International, according to AFP had written: "Amnesty International welcomes the recent stay of executions of Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva and Marinus Riwu and urges the Indonesian government to immediately transform this act of clemency into the commutation of their death sentences. The organization also calls on the authorities to review their trial, which was reportedly unfair."

In today's Jakarta Post, it is reported that the three men have made a further request for clemency from Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

According to Roy Rening, lawyer for one of the three men, their second appeal was made "because their trials were full of fabrications."

Currently the three men are being held in isolation in Palu jail. Roy Rening said: "The isolation is killing them because the three are not permitted to meet their families, lawyers and spiritual leaders."

The Jakarta Post states:

Some analysts have said the government of this predominantly Muslim nation is wavering because it does not want to risk public anger by executing the Bali bombers -- Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, Ali Gufron and Imam Samudra -- before the Christians.

. Mahendratta, lawyer for the three Muslims said: "People were asking, 'Why Amrozi first, and not Tibo?' For me, it is a simple matter: just follow the death row queue. Tibo and his friends got convicted first, and they should be executed first."

The office of President Susilo has received the letter, but there is no sign that he will act to prevent the execution from going ahead.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 7:44 PM | Comments (0)

UK: 12 Year Old Abducted For Forced Marriage In Pakistan

The girl at left is Molly Campbell, pictured with her mother Louise. Molly is sometimes known as Misbah Iram Ahmed Rana. Her father is a Muslim from Pakistan, who married Louise when she was 16 and he was 23. The couple had four children, and Molly is the youngest. The marriage ended but the father, Sajad Rana, wanted Molly to live with him. Louise has legal custody of Molly, and has had to move from Glasgow to other locations, because of the father's attempts to abduct the child, who wants to live with her mother.

The story, as carried by the BBC makes no mention of the father's intentions - to have her married off to a man in Pakistan who is 25 years old. On Friday (August 25) Molly was kidnapped from outside her school in Stornoway on the island of Lewis in the Western Isles by her 18 year old sister, Tahmina.

She was taken to the local airport and then flown to Glasgow airport, states the Scottish Daily Record and the Guardian, where she was then put on a plane with her father and taken to Pakistan. The father had hired a private investigator to locate Molly's whereabouts. They are now believed to be in Lahore in the Punjab, or Karachi, where Rana has relatives.

Her grandmother, 67-year old Violet Robertson, said: "It's just terrible. Molly is only a little girl. It's an arranged marriage. She doesn't know the man. He's 25. Molly doesn't want to go to Pakistan. She wants to stay with her mum."

Louise's plea for the return of her daughter and her comments about her loss can be found here.

Though Pakistan never signed up to the Hague Conention, a treaty designed to deal with returning children to their legal guardians. However British judges have signed another agreement with the Pakistani authorities, which similarly should address the issue. So far, it has never been tested in Scotland. Currently police in the Western Isles are liaising with Interpol and the Procurator Fiscal to work on means to bring Molly back.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 6:32 PM | Comments (0)

UK: Request For Muslim Terror Suspect's Extradition From Pakistan

News from the Guardian, from AKI and Dawn relates that Britain has requested that one of the suspects in the Operation Overt terror investigation be extradited from Pakistan. 26-year old Rashid Rauf (pictured left) is currently being detained in Pakistan, suspected of being a key figure in the plot to bring down several US-bound planes using liquid explosives. When Rashid Rauf was arrested in Bahawalpur in the Punjab, this was the trigger of several arrests on August 10 in Britain.

Currently, his father, 52-year old Abdul Rauf, is also in custody in Pakistan, as we mentioned on August 19. He had been arrested as he tried to board a plane to Birmingham. The Charity Commission was investigating claims that a charity Abdul Rauf had founded, Crescent Relief, had been involved in diverting funds aimed at alleviation of the plight of victims of the October 8 earthquake in Pakistan towards terrorism. The charity has since had its assets frozen. Abdul Rauf stepped down from the charity in 2003.

The request to have his son Rashid extradited does not officially involve the terror plot with which he is suspected of playing a key part. Instead, it relates to the murder of Rashid Rauf's uncle. 54-year old Mohammed Saeed was stabbed near his home in Alum Rock, Birmingham, in April 2002, and while police were conducting their inquiries, Rashid fled to Pakistan.

As early as August 15, Pakistan suggested that it may extradite Rashid Rauf to Britain in connection with the terror plot, which is believed to have involved al Qaeda, but no formal extradition request had then been made by UK authorities. Officially there is no extradition treaty between the two countries.

On August 26, Dawn reported that the UK had formally approached the foreign affairs ministry in Islamabad, to seek the return to Britain of the terror suspect. At that time, Pakistan's interior minister, Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, and its foreign office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam had claimed to be unaware of such a request.

Now, Tasnim Aslam has said: "Yes, they have sought his extradition and the matter is under consideration." She denies that Rashid Rauf was arrested in Bahawalpur, saying: "Mr Rauf was arrested in Rawalpindi. Presently he is under detention and we are investigating his involvement in terrorist activities in three areas – his link with Al Qaeda, threat projected to the UK; and threat projected in Pakistan. The information being obtained from our investigations is being shared with the UK through appropriate channels." She told a reporter that she had "no clue" about arrests in Bahawalpur.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 5:11 PM | Comments (0)

Iran: Islamist Regime Forces Women To Cover Up

In May we wrote that Gholam Hossein Elham, a spokesman for Iran's Islamist government, had stated that the issue of making women wear appropriate Islamic dress would be achieved through "cultural work and not the use of force."

Today's Telegraph reports that in Tehran, Iran's capital, such "cultural" measures have been abandoned in favour of legal enforcement. So far, during this month, a total of 64,000 women have been forced to cover their hair and wear long overcoats in public, despite the sweltering temperatures of late summer.

According to Mohammad Reza Alipour of Tehran's police, 63,963 women have been issued with official warnings about their dress being "un-Islamic", with some of these forced to sign pledges to affirm they will "dress properly".

Human Rights Watch's Hadi Ghaemi states that the current trend of forcing women into shrouding garb is something not seen for a decade, and is part of a drive under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to impose Islamic codes.

Ghaemi states that how a person is treated under these rules depends on their status: "The person could end up in jail depending on their relationship with the authorities."

In addition to imposing strict "Islamic" dress upon women, other previously rulings are now being enforced where satellite dishes are being confiscated from private apartment blocks.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 4:12 PM | Comments (0)

Belgium: Islamist AEL Founder To Leave Country Next Year

We wrote on February 5, at the height of the Danish Cartoon affair, that the Arab European League was joining in with disgustingly anti-semitic cartoons, including one showing Hitler in bed with Anne Frank, by its resident talentless "cartoonist" Nabucho.

The Arab European League (AEL) is based in Holland and Belgium, and was founded by Dyab Abou Jahjah (pictured), who justified his vile cartoons by saying: "Europe has its sacred cows, even if they're not religious sacred cows." The AEL officially is against violence, but it is vehemently against the integration of Muslims with non-Muslims.

This autumn, Dyab Abou Jahjah will be facing trial in Belgium, where he is currently based, for his involvement with race riots which took place in 2002 in Antwerp. These happened after a Moroccan-origin teacher, Mohamed Achrak, was shot in Borgerhout, a poor suburb of the city on November 26. Also to face trial with Jahjah will be two other members of the AEL, Ahmed Azzuz and Youssef Rahimi.

According to Expatica, Jahjah has said of the upcoming trial that "we hope to book a new judicial victory against the Belgian establishment that wants to criminalise our movement."

While the Lebanese/Israeli conflict was going on, Abou Jahjah went back to his home country of Lebanon, but returned unexpectedly last Tuesday. On the English language version of the AEL website, Jahjah says the battle of his people (Muslims) is against "the fascist army of Israel".

He founded the Arab European League in Belgium, and though it also operates in the Netherlands, arguing for immigrant Muslim's "rights" in both countries, there is currently a crisis of leadership in the Dutch division.

Expatica states that the Belgian newspaper "De Standaard" had claimed he would return permanently to Lebanon "by 2009", but now, it is announced that he will be going back to his home country by the start of 2007.

The announcement was made on the Dutch-language version of the AEL website.

And his departure will be mourned by few. In 1999 and 2003 the AEL stood for elections under different names, but failed to get any more than 1% of the vote. Why Europe gives these Islamists a place to live confounds anyone with an iota of rationality. Abou Jahjah, by announcing he is leaving, shows he only ever saw Europe as a recruiting ground to draw Muslims into anti-integrationism, and never saw it as his home.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 7:10 AM | Comments (0)

Australia: "Jihad Jack" Placed Under Control Order

We reported on August 18 that former Melbourne taxi driver Joseph Thomas, or "Jihad Jack" (pictured left) had been released from prison, after charges for which he had been convicted on February 26 were quashed. Thomas had been accused of receiving money from Al Qaeda, He had confessed during detention in Pakistan that he had been given US $3,500 (Aus $4,750) by one Khaled bin Attash, an Al Qaeda operative belived to have been involved in planning the attack against USS Cole in Aden in 2000.

Thomas had been detained in Pakistan, and according to him, he had been threatened with violence by a US interrogator, and subjected to physical abuse by a Pakistani interrogator. He had been detained in January 2003, but it was not until March of that year that members of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) had interviewed him. The confessions he had made to the AFP formed the bulk of the evidence with which he had been convicted.

However, on August 18, appeal justices Chris Maxwell, Frank Vincent and Peter Buchanan at the Victoria Court of Appeal ruled that Thomas' confessions had been made while he was under duress. The first man to be convicted under Australia's new terror laws, the decision of the judges was considered a blow in the fight against terrorism.

Prosecutors suggested that they would appeal against the ruling, and requested that an interview made by Jihad Jack for ABC with reporter Sally Neighbour should be submitted as evidence before the court. In this TV interview for the Four Corners program, given in February of this year, Jihad Jack freely confesses to the charges on which he was ultimately convicted and then acquitted. The Court of Appeal are still considering this request.

Today, Jihad Jack has made the headlines again, as he has now become the first person to become subject to a control order, limiting his activities and associations. Control orders were among the new measures brought in in Premier Howard's new raft of anti-terror legislation.

The news is reported by the Australian, the Melbourne Age and the Sydney-based Daily Telegraph.

The control order was issued by the AFP yesterday, and required that Jihad Jack return immediately from a vacation he was taking. The control order was authorised at the Federal Magistrates Court in Canberra on Sunday, following a request from Philip Ruddock, the Attorney General.

The order was presented to Thomas as he holidayed on a beach with his Indonesian-born wife Maryati and his children. His brother Les was outraged, saying: "He was slapped with a court order and told to get back to Melbourne immediately. We didn't expect them to stoop this low. Anyone who cares about civil liberties should be outraged."

Joseph Thomas must be in his home on a curfew between midnight and 5 am every day. He must report to police three times a week, and is forbidden from leaving Australia. He is also forbidden to use some internet service providers, and is restricted to only certain phone companies' services. Rob Stary, Thomas' lawyer, said he would appeal the control order in court later this week. He said he first became aware of the control order after it had been served on his client.

Philip Ruddock would not discuss the control order before it had been passed by the courts, but said: "When you're seeking to protect the Australian community, the system of control orders replicates that that has been put in place in the UK."

Unfortunately for people in Britain, Mr Justice Sullivan, a UK judge has ruled that control orders as they had been enforced in Britain contradicted the European Convention on Human Rights.

Lex Lasry, another lawyer who defended Thomas in the original trial and the appeal said that Philip Ruddock had "maligned and vilified" Jihad Jack, by publicly talking about the details of the control order after it had come into force.

Speaking to ABC radio, Lasry said: "What I am concerned about is the willingness of the attorney-general to convene a press conference in which he effectively maligns Mr Thomas while there are now two matters before the courts. It seems to me that's totally inappropriate."

"The overwhelming message from that and this morning's newspapers is that Mr Thomas is someone from whom the Australian community needs to be protected.....It's an obvious thing to say that it's most unfair in the way he is now being vilified, in a sense at the hands of the Attorney-General."

There are also fears that as his wife Maryati is an associate of Abu Bakar Bashir, who is spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, the group which caused the bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta on September 9, 2004, and as Jemaah Islamiyah also killed 202 tourists, including 88 Australians on Bali in October 2002, that Thomas could be in contact with the Indonesia-based terror group.

Thomas is also, according to the conditions of the control order, forbidden from contacting Osama bin Laden, whom he met while in Afghanistan in 2001.

The AFP had argued in court that Thomas was "vulnerable" and "attractive to aspirant extremists who will seek out his skills and experiences to guide them in achieving their potentially extremist objectives."

"There are good reasons to believe that, given Mr Thomas has received training with al-Qa'ida, he is now an available resource that can be tapped into to commit terrorist acts on behalf of al-Qa'ida or related terrorist cells. Training has provided Mr Thomas with the capability to execute or assist with the execution directly or indirectly of any terrorist acts. Mr Thomas also admitted that while at the al-Qa'ida training camp he undertook weapons training, including the use of explosives, and learned how to assemble and shoot various automatic weapons."

"Mr Thomas is vulnerable. Mr Thomas may be susceptible to the views and beliefs of persons who will nurture him during his reintegration into the community," the police summary stated.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 12:46 AM | Comments (0)

August 28, 2006

US: Islamic Professor Has More Death Threats

Khaled Abou el Fadl is a professor at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), where he holds the post of Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Professor of Law. Born in Kuwait in 1963 and brought up in Egypt and Kuwait, he has been at UCLA's law faculty since 1998, where he teaches Islamic law, Immigration, Human Rights, International and National Security Law.

He came to America in 1982, after being imprisoned in the Middle East for writing tracts advocating democracy. He has argued that women should be able to lead prayers, and has lectured throughout the Muslim world.

He holds a Ph.D in Islamic Studies from Princeton, and is regarded as the United States' leading authority on Islamic jurisprudence. He is the author of seven books and more than 50 articles on Islam and Islamic law. In some ways, he is considered as a moderate, as he opposes the strict interpretations of Islam as practised by the Wahhabis and Salafists of Saudi Arabia. He claims Wahhabism denigrates women and others, and paved the way for the ideologues of violence such as Osama bin Laden. But in other ways, his critics, such as Daniel Pipes and also Andrew G. Bostom point to more traditional and hardline aspects of his beliefs. He is an ardent supporter of the Saudi-funded Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and still believes that Muslims should be under Sharia law.

It is his interpretation of sharia law, and that other bone of contention - "jihad" that have made some people call him a moderate. In an interview with Qantara he states that suicide bombers are percerting the original concept of "jihad", which he maintains means "struggle" and not "Holy War". He said: "The concept of Jihad is very much different to today's suicide bombings. Jihad also differs from the holy war in the Crusade period, which developed from the doctrine of self-purification through bloodsheds. In the idea of holy war, murder is regarded as a mechanism to approach God and war is regarded as sacred. Hence, any cruelty in war will not be seen as a form of barbarism."

The reason why he appears on Western Resistance is because of the recent claims made in the LA Times, and which are commented upon in the Pakistan Daily Times and also by his critic Daniel Pipes. These claims are that Professor el Fadl is being threatened with death.

Since he first openly denounced the beliefs of Wahhabism, which is the hardline theology followed by the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia which was founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab in the 18th century, he has claimed that he has had many death threats made against him.

In the LA Times article, which was printed on Sunday, August 27, el Fadl claims that in April, as he was standing by the living room door at his California home, a bullet shot past him, and became lodged in a book.

This month, in the newspaper Al-Watan and in other Arabic language media, stories were printed about a "solicitation of murder" with el Fadl as the target. Apparently, his latest supporters of assassination are the Iranians, on account of his support for the Israeli strike against southern Lebanon after Hizbollah captured two soldiers. These Iranian sources apparently claim that el Fadl had advised George W. Bush to support Israel's actions.

He now claims that this news report is a "total fabrication", and claims never to have met President Bush, nor to have supported Israel's actions, which he now condemns.

Recently, el Fadl has been visited by members of the University of California police and the FBI's joint terrorism task force, to warn him to increase his security measures following these reports.

Even the LA Times casts some doubt on a claim by el Fadl that the story of the recent Iran-originated death threat led to requests from at least 20 journalists from Middle Eastern media outlets. A search by MEMRI found only the Al Watan report had carried mention of the threat, earlier this month.

El Fadl states: "I've received so many death threats, and I've never had an impending sense of doom. This time, we're taking it more seriously." He does not know who is behind the threats, but says: "If they scare me into silence, they will have succeeded. I'm not going to give them that victory."

Daniel Pipes is very cynical of the recent announcements of this campaign against him. As Al-Watan is a small publication outlet, based in Anaheim, then Pipes wonders why el Fadl should then further broadcast the threat in the far larger circulation Los Angeles Times.

Dr Pipes argues that the reason could be that el Fadl is an erratic individual, or that el Fadl is "a self-promoter and shameless publicity hound who exploits any opportunity to get his name in the paper, even at the expense of his reputation and security."

In February last year, Daniel Pipes argued that far from condemning Wahhabism, el Fadl has acted as an apologist for the puritanical creed. El Fadl has argued that Wahhabist literature found in American mosques should not be banned.

There are some questions about where el Fadl really stands on anything he promotes. Looking into some of his statements in the Qantara interview, he at first glance seems a moderate, but a second reading shows this not to be the case. In another article by Dr Pipes, el Fadl has some "New Islamist" doctrines, which denounce Wahhabism but are puritanical and extreme in their own way. According to Pipes: "Sheikh Muhammad al-Ghazali (1917-96)), a leading New Islamist, remains one of Abou El Fadl's chief intellectual influences."

In his latest book "The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists" (Harper, San Francisco, 2005) el Fadl calls for a "counter-jihad" of moderate Muslims against austere and puritanical Islam. You can read our review by Xingzhe HERE. Whether he means it as we would perceive it to mean, or means something else entirely, is something only el Fadl would know.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)

Saudi Arabia: Restrictions On Women Praying At Mecca

News from Reuters via the Pakistan and the Khaleej Times relates that clerics in Saudi Arabia are intending to restrict women's access to the Ka'aba, the meteoric stone at Mecca, in the Grand Mosque. The area around the Ka'aba has become crowded of late, and according to Osama Al Bar, who heads the all-male Institute for Haj Research: "So we decided to get women out of the 'sahn' (Kaaba area) to a better place where they can see the Kaaba and have more space. Some women thought it wasn't good, but from our point of view it will be better for them.... We can sit with them and explain to them what the decision is (about)."

The decision is not final and may be negotiated, but already women's groups are complaining. Suhaila Hammad, who is Saudi herself and a member of an international organisation of Muslim scholars said: "Both men and women have the right to pray in Kaaba. Men have no right to take it away. Men and women mix when they circumambulate the Kaaba, so do they want to make us do that somewhere else too? This is discrimination against women."

The 'sahn' is one of the few places in Saudi Arabia where men and women can pray together, even though there are rules about where or where not women can be situated in this area. The muttawa, or religious policemen of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, already harass women who stray from their designated "areas" around the Ka'aba stone.

Hatoun al-Fassi, a woman historian, said: "Perhaps they want women to disappear from any public prayer area and when it comes to the holy mosques that's their ultimate aim."

She also noted that recently the religious authorities restricted the access of women to the tomb of Mohammed, founder of Islam, at Medina.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 10:14 PM | Comments (0)

Norway: Muslim "Honor" Led To Massive Brawl

Two families from Afghanistan became involved in a feud over "honor" which led to one 45-year old man suffering from life threatening injuries in a brawl on Saturday (26 August), states Aftenposten.

The conflict began on Friday in Lillestrøm, a town northeast of Oslo, Norway's capital. Outside a fast food outlet on the main high street, two sixteen year -olds became engaged in an argument, in which one of the youths made "indicent remarks" about the other one's sister.

Consequently, on Saturday morning, the representatives of both families gave the go-ahead for a fight to take place at 6 pm at Nebbursvollen, site out of an outdoor recreation area. When the allotted time came, about 30 members of the families with others in tow began the fight, which led to the father of one of the boys being in a critical condition in hospital.

Knives and other weapons were involved, and as one of the 16 year-olds said later: "All of my closest family members have been arrested. This is about my own and my family's honor."

23 people were arrested after the incident.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 9:58 PM | Comments (0)

UK Islam: Faces of Fanatacism Part Five

In part five of our occasional series of Muslim fanatics currently infecting Britain's body politic, we will examine the role of 42-year old Abu Abdullah (pictured left) who was formerly an aide to the now-jailed preacher, Abu Hamza, the first subject of this series.

Abu Abdullah was born in Britain to Turkish Cypriot parents in 1964. He was born and raised and London, and his birth name was Attila Ahmet. According to a report from the UK Mirror he worked as a soccer coach before he "converted" to radical Islam about eight years ago. He was coach to the Sydenham Boys, Athenlay, and Fisher Athletic, where he earned the nickname "Attila the Hun".

According to Brian Miller, the chairman of the Bexley League: "He was a nutter, very volatile and took it far too seriously. Once I had to referee the managers - not the game."

He apparently was known to colleagues then under the name of "Alan". In 1998, when Attila Ahmet "converted" to Islam and changed his name in the process, he abandoned soccer altogether.

A father of four children, Abu Abdullah was the subject of an article in yesterday's Sunday Times which highlights how the associate of hook-handed Abu Hamza is now openly defying the law by praising the four suicide bombers who killed 52 people on London Transport, and maimed and injured hundreds more.

The UK introduced its Terrorism Act 2006 in April, and this explicitly outlaws the glorification of terrorism. Schedule 1, section 1 (3) qualifies such terms of encouragement of terrorism as a statement which "(a) glorifies the commission or preparation (whether in the past, in the future or generally) of such acts or offences; and (b) is a statement from which those members of the public could reasonably be expected to infer that what is being glorified is being glorified as conduct that should be emulated by them in existing circumstances."

The penalties for this are a maximum of 7 years' jail or a fine, or both, when convicted following an indictment, and up to 12 months' imprisonment upon a summary conviction.

Abu Abdullah now heads a group calling itself Supporters of Sharia which was founded by his friend Abu Hamza when the hook-handed cleric was imam at the Finsbury Park Mosque.

And it is apparently to this group that Abdullah is directing his comments, in blatant defiance of the law, and with the authorities either oblivious or unwillingto take action against him.

Since the law was passed outlawing the glorification of terrorism, Abdullah has also said that he would "love" to kill British troops based in Afghanistan. He described the attacks of 9/11, 2001 as a "deserved punch in the nose" for the United States.

Barred from preaching in most mosques, Abdullah is allowed to make these statements at small meetings held at community centers in London and the adjoining Home Counties.

Last week, according to the Times, he said of the 7/7 bombers: "I wasn't against them. We don't celebrate each other....but these are my honourable brothers in Islam.....Sometimes the innocent have to pay the price....of course it is solving things."

Abdullah also described the 7/7 attacks as a "wake-up call", but whether this was a wake-up call for the UK public that Islamist terrorists lived amongst them, or a wake-up call to Muslims to become radicalized is not specified. He called suicide attacks "halal" or Islamically lawful.

He said of the suicide bomber's role: "He doesn't have weapons of mass destruction, he only has household chemicals....The West is escalating their killing of Muslims. We have a right to defend ourselves. If I had the means to go back there [Afghanistan] and kill an American or British soldier then I would love to do so."

He is virulently anti-semitic. Even though he formerly praised the 9/11 attacks and said that he loved Osama bin Laden more than himself, he now claims those events were stage-managed by Mossad, the Israeli secret service. He called Jews "a treacherous people", and justified a 9/11 style attack upon the White House because he saw George W, Bush as "a scalp that needs to be taken."

On October 14, 2004, Abdullah gave an interview to the Public Broadcasting Service. At that time, following the ousting of Abu Hamza, Abdullah was the leader of the Finsbury Park Mosque.

He claimed then that his real conversion had happened 12 years' previously, in 1992, when he first heard Islam preached in Arabic. He had been only a "nominal" Muslim up until that point. "I was a person that was full of desires, from gambling to other things. There was a stage when I was involved with heavy people. I'm talking about seriously heavy people."

He claimed then that his companion Abu Hamza had been "demonized further than he can be demonized". He said then that he felt "an amount of feelings for certain people in this country. The everyday person, the layman, the civilian", which would have prevented him from fighting against UK forces abroad. It appears that now he has either abandoned that position, or was lying to the PBS interviewer.

But he did justify armed jihad in some circumstances, and claimed violence is encouraged in the Koran: "Allah mentioned jihad in the Quran 26 times, and Allah mentioned quital 79 times. Quital is fighting by a physical fighting -- 79 times."

He said: "People see us as extremists because we don't compromise the religion of Allah. We accept it with every word and every utterance of our beloved prophet Muhammad, that no Muslim can turn away from one ayah of the Quran, one verse of the Quran. If we don't accept this, we actually become disbelievers."

He had contempt for the extremist-supporting hierarchy of the Muslim Council of Britain, condemning them as heretics. He said: "They have invented their own religion and [are] brainwashing the ignorant Muslim that doesn't fully understand the Quran. And this is how they're going, with the support of Tony Blair, to turn fellow Muslims against me or against the likes of Osama bin Laden and etc. and etc. and etc. The ultimate thing is that they're turning them away from the prophet, peace be upon him."

Virtually the same contempt for the so-called moderate Muslims who make deals with the UK government was later made by Mohamed Sidique Khan, one of the 7/7 bombers, in his Al Qaeda-produced "farewell" video which we transcribed earlier: "Our so-called scholars today are content with their Toyotas and semi-detached houses. They seem to think their responsibilities lie with pleasing the khuffar instead of Allah, so they tell us ludicrous things, like "you must obey the law of the land". So how na- how on earth did we conquer lands in the past if we were to obey by this, this law? By Allah, these scholars will be brought to account, and if they fear the British government more than they fear Allah, then they must desist in doing talks, lectures, and passive fatwas and they need to stay at home where they are useless, and leave the job to the real men, the true inheritors of the Prophets.

Abu Abdullah's position at the Finsbury Park Mosque was not to last for long after his PBS interview. As they had done with the thugs who supported Anu Hamza, the trustees of the mosque finally invoked the law, and on February 8, 2005, the Mirror reported that when the trustees, accompanied by riot police confronted Abdullah, he finally agreed to leave the mosque.

According to Ihtisham Hibatullah, of the (extremist-supporting) Muslim Association of Britain: "He was told he wasn't welcome. There were angry words. But with police outside, he left. This man and his followers were damaging the community and the reputation of Islam. Ordinary Muslims were afraid to come here. The mosque can hold 1,000 people but only ever had about 80."

The locks on the mosque were subsequently changed, to prevent Abdullah and his thugs gaining control again.

After being routed from the Finsbury Park Mosque, Abdullah and his thugs then descended upon the East London Mosque in Whitechapel. Inayat Bunglawala of the MCB said that he and about a dozen associates interrupted prayers and tried to sabotage a talk on Islamophobia. He said: "He ranted at me that I was teaching poison. Then his goons made trouble. They were chased out and Abdullah was beaten a bit." Abdullah was later seen wearing dark glasses and limping.

Before being ousted from the Finsbury Park Mosque, Abdullah's sermons were recorded by Bobby Pathak, a reporter from the Mirror, who had spent six weeks under cover attending Abdullah's Friday evening (juma) prayer sessions and sermons.

Pathak wrote that Abdullah described non-Muslims as "filthy" disbelievers. And the preacher also praised "our honourable brothers in Guantanamo Bay".

Abdullah said: "If you cannot do what those honourable brothers are doing today...leaving their wives and children to go to the front line, then this is our front line here."

Like all preachers of violence against the West, Abdullah liked to tell his followers that Muslims around the world are victims. He preached on January 7, 2005: "How can we go home and sleep at night knowing there are millions of Muslims screaming for our help? Do we not have a conscience? Or do we think that we're doing the right thing? Brothers and sisters, the time has come for us to stand up and be counted. Behave like Muslims. It's the least you can do so you can find reward on yaum al-qiyamah (afterlife). Otherwise, the fire is beckoning."

A week later, he preached: "While we fast and worship Allah these shaitan (devils) mock Allah's religion and put Allah's religion to the sword." Eight times in the same sermon Abdullah spoke of Muslims being slaughtered.

"They call us extremists. They see us as strange. Our honourable brothers in Guantanamo, they've become strange. Why? Because they're the Haq (truth) and we've let them down. We've forgotten these people in Afghanistan, in prisons, our mothers, sisters that have been raped. Allah constantly sends us signs in our eyes and we turn away. The tsunami disaster - Muslims died in this. But on these Muslim lands, zina (sinful fornication), night-clubs...the Muslims wanted to dilute the dean (greatness) of Allah."

On January 28, Abdullah told young men that it was a sin for them to wear T-shirts "showing muscles" as it made women to have impure thoughts. And he condemned as sinful women who wore make-up outside the house, or who wore tight trousers and a hijab.

He turned his ire to the Muslim Council of Britain - saying they campaigned to "imprison Muslims". He said of the MCB: "Like the Jews that practise the Torah, they want to practise what's good for them and brush aside or sweep under the carpet what they dislike. Stand up against these murtads (leavers of the faith) who say they're the spokesmen or they represent the Islamic community in this country."

A week later, he was unable to perform his Juma sermon, as riot police had forced him onto the street.

The Times yesterday quoted Rachel North, who survived the 7/7 attack, saying of Abdullah: "Given what we know about the roots of radicalisation, I'm surprised that this man has not yet been investigated and charged if he has committed a criminal offence."

A human rights lawyer, Geoffrey Bindman said that Abdullah's current praise of the 7/7 bombers (at least two of which attended sermons at Finsbury Park Mosque) could be interpreted as incitement of others to copy their actions, and said that his anti-semitic comments could also mean that Abdullah could be charged on grounds of incitement to racial or religious hatred.

As terrorism always starts with an idea, then the authorities in Britain should show some moral integrity and enforce the laws that the government introduced this year. And by charging Abdullah, it should set an example, and show to young already-radicalized Muslims that there is no freedom to preach violent jihad and hate in Britain. To do otherwise would be seen as an encouragement.

Previous entries in this series:
Part One - Abu Hamza
Part Two - Abdullah al-Faisal (Abdullah el-Faisal)
Part Three - Abu Izzadeen
Part Four - Anjem Choudary

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 8:40 PM | Comments (0)

Thailand: Muslim Insurgents Slice Off Victim's Ears

Today, according to the Nation a village defense volunteer in the mainly Muslim south was murdered by Islamist insurgents, and his body mutilated. The man, Sa-mael Jeha, aged 56, was found on a road in Sugai Padi district in Narathiwat Province.

He had earlier set off on his motorcycle to deliver Chinese donuts to local coffee houses when he was shot dead by Muslim militants on a village road in Moo Si village in Tambon Rigo.

The militants appear to have tried to cut his head off after he was killed, but failing in this, they chopped off his ears and took them away as trophies.

Yesterday in Yala province, a middle-aged man was shot by militants in a drive-by killing. 57-year old Sujin Jitrban was at a gas station in Kue Long in Bannang Sata district, filling up his pick-up truck when two men on a motorcycle approached and opened fire. Police suspect Muslim militants to have carried out the attack.

These are just two of the latest atrocities in an insurgency that has lasted since January 4, 2004, and claimed 1,400 lives. Initially the insurgency targeted the Buddhist population and priesthood, but recently more Muslim victims are killed by the insurgents, people such as defense volunteers and others who are viewed as "collaborators". Also schools and teachers themselves have been the subjects of insurgent attack. On the first night of the insurgency in 2004, 20 schools were set on fire.

The southern provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, as well as two districts of Songhkla province, formerly comprised an independent Muslim sultanate called Pattani, before they were officially annexed by Thailand a century ago. The population in these provinces is 80% Muslim, and 20% Buddhist. Since January 4 2004, an insurgency has been carried out by Muslim separatists from several factions, who wish to see the southern region secede from Thailand.

Our last report on the insurgency in the three southern provinces of Thailand was on August 14. Before documenting the tally-sheet of atrocities by the Muslim insurgents which took place while I was absent on holiday, I should mention one item that has featured heavily in Thai news reports - the plot to assassinate the caretaker prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.

Assassination plot or hoax?

On Thursday, August 24, a general in the Royal Thai Army was sacked following allegations that his personal driver had been found in possession of an explosive device, which was said to have been intended to kill Thaksin. Lieutenant Thawatchai Klinchana, an officer with the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), was arrested early in the morning, and later that day General Panlop Pinmanee, deputy director of ISOC was dismissed from his post.

The following day, as rumours spread that the bomb incident was a hoax set up by the government and Thaksin's party, the Thai Rak Thai, the caretaker prime minister (who had stepped down on April 4 after allegations of corruption) made a statement. Thaksin said that four military officers had been involved in the assassination plot.

However, many people refused to believe the claims, according to a poll published in yesterday's Bangkok Post, which had been conducted by Bangkok University. 49.8% of those polled, who came from Bangkok and its environs, claimed the plot was a hoax. 60.8% of these were convinced the government had engineered the event, and 20% thought that anti-government elements were behind the plot. Only 20.5% thought the plot had been real. 47.5% or respondents thought the TRT party would not lose popularity, and 25.5% thought the insident would affect TRT.

Inside a Daewoo car were found explosives, and according to Pol Lt-Col Kamthorn Ouicharoen, a 38-year-old officer of the Metropolitan Police Bureau's bomb disposal unit, the bomb was constructed by a professional. 67 kilograms of TNT was the explosive in the device, which would have caused damage over a 50 meter radius. However, army specialist Maj-Gen Khatiya Sawasdipol said he thought it was a plot by police to deceive people. He said wires in the detonating circuit were not connected correctly, and the bomb would not have gone off. The car was parked about a mile from Thaksin's house.

Yesterday, a 13-minute video of the suspect, Lieutenant Thawatchai Klinchana, was released by police. This was a message made after his arrest, in which the lieutenant said that he took full responsibility for the proposed attack, and even apologised to the public and Thaksin Shinawatra. Today, a military court refused the suspect bail.

The Insurgency

On Tuesday August 15, journalists were told by Gen. Adul Saengsingkaew, COmmissioner of the Provincial Police, Region 9, that the authorities were aware of insurgent plots. He said: "We believe that the insurgents active in the three troubled southernmost provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani will immediately stir the new spate of unrest once state security forces are apparently weak."

The following day, an elderly man was killed in Yala town, Yala province. 74-year old Thuan Intaratana was hit twice by bullets from a .38mm pistol as he rode his motorcycle to downtown Yala to attend a meeting of cooperative store owners. He was pursued by gunmen on another motorcycle, and received two gunshots to his torso.

On Thursday, August 17, 19 people were wounded in two separate bombing incidents. Around 7 am in Rangae district in Narathiwat province, a motorcycle bomb went off, wounding five soldiers and seven civilians. A young girl was among the injured.

An hour later, a bomb went off in a restaurant in Yala province, opposite the Yala State Hospital. Two policemen and five other people were injured, including hospital staff.

In both incidents, police recovered nails which had been part of the devices, and fragments of mobile phones, which were used to detonate the bombs.

On the same day in Pattani province, there were two fatal shooting incidents. Around 8 am in Nong Chik district, 31-year old Ma Matahe, a government informant, was shot dead as he rode home in his motorcycle. His assailants were two gunmen.

In the town of Sai Buri, Sai Buri district in Narathiwat, a 47-government employee was also shot dead by motorcycle gunmen. Bunchoo Longphrom was riding to work on his motorcycle.

On Friday August 18, a woman civil servant was wounded in Yala province. 24-year old Nongyao Tiyaworaphan was an employee of the Mae Wad subdistrict administration. She was attacked as she rode her motorcycle to work. She was hit four times by gunshot from unidentified assailants, and rushed to hospital.

On Saturday August 19, a village headman was shot dead by two unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle in Yala province. 55-year old Suding Wahmae Disah was riding his motorcycle from Raman district to his home when he was shot once in the head and twice in the back. He died instantly.

On Sunday August 20, one person was killed and another injured after four insurgents on motorcycles fired AK47 rifles at a Irrigation Department-owned vehicle carrying eight workers. The incident happened in Yaring district in Pattani province. 56-year old Kade Nibong was killed, and 46-year old Roya Jehwae was taken to Pattani hospital.

On Monday August 21, according to Reuters, the insurgents focused their attention back on their former targets, Buddhists. A few days before one attack in Yala province, the insurgents had distributed leaflets, ordering Buddhists to leave the area.

The attack took place on Buddhist civilians as they loaded a truck with durian fruit, which they had purchased from a mainly Muslim village. Three Buddhist men were shot dead by gunmen riding motorcycles. The incident took place 300 meters away from an army outpost.

In Narathiwat province on the same day, three women, one Muslim and two Buddhist were all riding the same motorcycle, on their way home from visiting a market, when they were all shot and wounded. A police spokesman said: "Muslim villagers took the Muslim woman to hospital, but the Buddhist mother and daughter had to wait until police arrived because they were afraid of being seen as helping the government."

On Wednesday August 23, a Muslim schoolteacher was shot dead as he rode his motorcycle to the Islamic school (tadika) where he worked in Narathiwat province. 35-year old Ayi Mamu was shot several times by four people in a pickup truck, who fled the scene. Mr Ayi was taken to a local hospital, where he died.

On Friday August 25, a 34-year old man was shot dead in his pickup truck in Bannang Sata district of Yala province. The victim was named as Montree Buddikerd. He had been shot several times as he returned home from work.

On Saturday August 26 in Khok Pho district, Pattani province, a roadside bomb was detonated by mobile phone as a police patrol passed by. 47-year old Pol Sen Sgt-Maj Visai Narangkul suffered minor injuries in the blast. A civilian bystander, 30-year old shoe vendor Veerasak Paladsama, was also injured by the bomb, which was triggered by mobile phone.

Also on Saturday in Bannang Sata district of Yala province, a home-made bomb killed two army officials. Col Suthisak Prasertsri, 1st special task force chief, and one of his subordinates were killed as they returned from a "merit-making" trip in Than To district. The colonel's coffin is shown left, at Ubon Ratchathani airport, being brought home for burial. Five other army personnel were critically injured in the attack.

Rumours of fresh attacks by insurgents from the Bersatu separatist movement have brought trade in the Narathiwat provinces of Sungai Kolok and Tak Bai to a standstill.

The districts rely upon visitors from other districts, and even from Malaysians crossing the border, but visitors have stopped coming since the rumours emerged.

Yesterday, a unit hunting for the killers of Col Sutthisak Prasertsri, 1st special task force chief and one of his men conducted a raid in Bannang Sata district, Yala, and uncovered a factory for producing spikes. These spikes are often used to spread over roads when an insurgent attack takes place, to hinder access from security vehicles. Gun polish and spare gun parts were also recovered from a nearby cave.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 5:17 PM | Comments (0)

August 26, 2006

Opinion: Is